The Void

My cousin sold our childhood home to a woman whose job involves doing research for children to get vaccinated against all kinds of diseases. Noble cause. Glad she's alive to fight the good fight through her work. When I finish my teaching credential program I will be sculpting the minds of little people; one of the hardest and most rewarding jobs I am capable of doing daily. I can't wait. But until this degree/training process is complete and I'm firmly planted in a kindergarten classroom, here is my take on the medial labor I will soon be doing to fill the time until I can work with meaning.

Okay, so you have your pop music to listen to as a abstract background to numb your atrophied brain. You can learn about the lives of these pop stars. Fill your brain with more worthless crap! You have your lovely commute to your menial job (mine being waitress work). Or maybe you can listen to Morrissey, you know, revolt against the working world. You have your brain numbing fast food, your car to worry about, you coworkers to chat topically with. You're entire routine amounts to little more then the perfunctory phrase, "Have a good day!"

When I quit my job as a waitress, it was a beautiful morning. I turned the question around in my mind all night, then took a walk down our nice neighborhood and watched the houses slowly light up with the morning sun rising. You could imagine the coffee steeping, the outfit picked out to replace comfortable pjs. It was as poetic an image as industry can get.
And I decided to say, "I don't want this. I don't know anything but this and I want a different existence." I did the unthinkable at a late age (25) and quit making money. Quit saying, "Have a nice day." Quit drinking the cooking wine when no one was around just to force a smile on my face when the sun set and I was a slave to asking the rich what they wanted for dinner. I wanted something different. I will not say 'I wanted MORE'. I wanted something different.

So I jumped into the void. Spent a few years developing what I call, "The Unemployed Personality". My journey was sad and unique and strange. Dabbled in drugs. Tried a few part time jobs. Drank vodka. Picked fresh flowers from colorful fields. Made love. Cried to virtual strangers on the phone at 4 in the morning, up with questions and fears. There is never any safety in the VOID. There is only creation or emptiness. Isolation. Bliss. An entire universe formed from organic experience separate from pop culture and synthetic fashions. You are living for nothing but you know every day that you are alive.

Jumping out of the void is as terrifying and enthralling as the morning I walked down my home town street and and watched lights turn on and garage doors open. I know that world. To attach yourself to any commitment is losing your freedom, even if it's just slightly.

Of course I worked with flair in my little robot revolt during those working days. I went through a phase of refusing to say, "Have a nice day!" or "Cold outside." I bought a vesper and rode that to work. Packed the seat with roses I sent to a woman I loved as a friend along with long letters. Lived in a boat a times, with a man who wrote awful poetry about the sky. The boat was like a cradle. I'd find some Vicodin and sit on the pier and look at the stars reflected in the black water of the South River in an Annapolis harbor.
Ran my worries away every morning for miles before work. Ended my jog by running up a hill and listening to my beating heart say, "I am". I ran to escape my body. Did what I could to be free.

We all want to be free. You have a choice: give up some freedom for stability. Or jump into the void. When you enter the void you only have your mind and your appearance and time. That's all. But you are free. Take your own interpretation from that statement. Living for nothing. You are not in society. I heard my heart beat so many times and ran with no compass, in search of something.